Nutty Day

Today turned out to be a very pleasant, fluid, unplanned sort of day. I had to leave work at 4:30 because we are not allowed to work one minute of overtime until the economic crisis disappears. So I put in my time, walked to the bus and headed home.

But I quickly changed plans. The day was so absolutely beautiful that sitting around in an apartment would be a sin. The sky was crystal blue and the temperature was hovering around the 70 degree mark.

Given those conditions, I decided having dinner outside would be a wonderful thing to do. So I decided to head down to one of my favorite spots downtown: a somewhat funky, somewhat haphazard Vietnamese restaurant with a tiny Biergarten. Despite that description, the food there is great and cheap.

Yet I never got there. Instead, I took a stroll down the street, which was full of fruit and vegetable businesses that display their goods outside. I love looking at all the tasty things there. After passing two of them, I came upon one that was selling fresh, baby okra at an unbelievably low price. I had to have some, so I filled a bag full and went in to pay.

As I stood in line to pay, I spotted some hazelnut brittle on sale. It’s just like peanut brittle, but with hazelnuts. No peanut brittle was available, but didn’t bother me for long because I spotted some almond brittle, pistachio brittle, and mixed nut brittle right alongside the hazelnut brittle.
The line was moving fast , so I grabbed as many of the various kinds of brittle that I could hold and stood there trying not to let any of them slip to the floor. Fortunately, I succeeded.

Why I went crazy for all that brittle is a mystery to me, though I doubt that it will last long. It’s the kind of thing that will make me obsess for it day and night.

Anyway, I left the store with my okra and brittle, and decided to go to dinner before the brittle won all of my attention. As fate would have it, I ended up going to a completely different restaurant than I had planned, although it was still a Vietnamese restaurant. The food was great and low, low calorie, so I felt no guilt by finishing the evening with a couple bars of pistachio and hazelnut brittle. Almond will have to wait until tomorrow. Maybe.